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“How’s it going with your private sessions with Kova?”
“Wh...What?”
More scrubbing. “Think about the question, Aid, not the pain.”
“The question...What was the question?”
His back vibrated with a chuckle. “How are your private sessions going?”
“Ah, going well I guess...” I struggled for breath. “Not as bad or as weird as I expected.”
“I take it you found something to talk about?”
I gripped his shirt tighter as he rinsed my hand. “We did...” I didn’t want to go into detail about the conversation I’d had with Kova. It was private and I had a notion he didn’t tell very many people, so I said, “As much as I appreciate what you’re trying to do, Hayden, I can’t think straight right now.”
“Take a deep breath.”
The cool liquid poured over my hand and I inhaled loudly, throwing my head back. White-hot pain shot through me and I almost blacked out. Tears coated my eyelashes but they didn’t stream down my cheeks, and I clenched my teeth so hard I was sure I was seconds away from chipping one.
“Hayden, please,” I begged. My hand shook violently under his hold. My fingers tried to curl up again, but Hayden held them open
as he rubbed around the rips.
“Shhh...It’s all right. We’re almost done,” he said apologetically. Hayden rinsed my hand again and plucked off any dead skin he missed with the nail clippers.
“I think I need another shot...Or an entire bottle. Make that two bottles before you do the other hand.”
He laughed, his back vibrating against my cheek. “I’m pretty sure you’d die if you drank two bottles of vodka.”
“I’ll take my chances. It can’t be worse than this.”
Shutting the water off, Hayden turned around and I stepped away from him. My jaw dropped when I looked at my trembling hand. It looked like raw meat.
“We need to let it air dry before we put anything over it for the night,” Hayden instructed.
“Do you think that’s a good idea? To put stuff over it? Shouldn’t I cover it during the day and let it breathe at night?” He looked at me like I should know the answer. “I’ve never done this before, Hayden, so I have no idea what to do.”
Hayden’s eyes softened. Using the pad of his thumb, he wiped away one lone tear. “Don’t cry,” he said sympathetically. The gesture was sweet and for some reason made me tear up even more. My jaw quivered and my chin dropped to my chest. I hated this, this pain, these emotions, this sport. I hated it all and wished it would go away. There was no way I could go through something like this again. If Kova made me do any kind of bar work tomorrow or in the next few days, I would straight up murder him.
Hayden pulled me into a hug. Cradling my hand to my chest, I leaned into him and let the tears fall. Screw fighting it. This kind of torture would bring a grown man to his knees.
Exhaustion suddenly consumed me and I let out a loud sigh. “I’m sorry for crying.”
He rubbed my back in circles and his hips dropped to the counter to sit. “Want to know a secret?”
“You seem to have a lot of secrets, Hayden.”
He laughed. “The first time I had rips this bad, my mom had to take care of them the way I just did for you. I cried. Like a little, fucking baby, I cried and sobbed into her hard and she had to hold me afterward. It was embarrassing and I never forgot it. Since then, I’ve made sure to do everything humanly possible to avoid rips to this capacity ever again. I know it’s inevitable, but I do try and I know you will too from here on out. I’ll help you and show you what to do to toughen your skin up a bit more. Once your palms heal and new skin grows over, you’ll need to pumice them every day. I feel your pain, Adrianna. I do, babe. And I’m sorry I had to cause you more.”
I let his words sink in and relaxed a little into his body. For someone who was built with as much muscle as he was, Hayden was unexpectedly soft.
He dropped a friendly kiss to the top of my head and then said, “Let’s take care of your other hand. Lucky for you, it isn’t that bad off, so it shouldn’t be as painful.”
Shouldn’t, being the key word.
When I first moved to Cape Coral in March, I worried I’d be a little lonely, even though I was ready for more freedom. But with the training and long hours, and getting accustomed to my new life, I hadn’t had time to actually feel alone. I guess it was a good thing. Weeks flew by, and before I knew it, summer training arrived. With no more school, it was train, train, train every minute of every day.
From what I’d heard, the members of World Cup and the coaches got together each year and had a Fourth of July barbecue. It was their way of bringing the team and coaches together and blow off a little steam. This year it was held at Kova’s impressive two-story home that overlooked the Caloosahatchee River. Considering he was from Russia, I found it amusing he would host a holiday that celebrated America’s Independence.
